Category: Video Games

Gearbox development chief Randy Pitchford has said the inbound Borderlands 4 Day 1 patch “does a lot,” amid concern about the performance of the looter shooter.

Pitchford responded to concern about Borderlands 4’s pre-release performance on PC from some users on X / Twitter, confirming not only that there’s a Day 1 patch on the way, but that it sounds pretty much essential to play the game.

Borderlands 4 has an official release date of September 12 across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, with the Nintendo Switch 2 launch following shortly after. Fans will be keen to jump in as soon as possible, making the Day 1 patch an early hoop to jump through.

Despite the Day 1 patch, playing Borderlands 4 on older hardware won’t miraculously unlock “buttery smooth performance,” Pitchford added. It should be expected that Borderlands 4 is “unplayable” if you’re trying to use a PC below min-spec, he said, and, generally, playing new AAA games on older hardware won’t achieve impressive results.

Here’s the comment in full:

The Day 1 patch does a lot! That said, the expectation for using a below min-spec machine should be that the game is unplayable. That the game runs at all on your system is a miracle. That you can get 55 – 60 fps out of heavy combat is actually incredible given how the engine and what’s going on under the hood. Your specification doesn’t indicate if you’re on SDD or HDD, but that could also explain some of the hitching. It’s a big, bold, new, seamless world and I’m sorry to say that older hardware may not provide buttery smooth performance for the latest gen AAA games, as has always been the case since the dawn of PC gaming.

A significant portion of the PC gaming audience play on low-end hardware. Indeed, just last month the developers of Battlefield 6 told Eurogamer they saw a “substantial number” of open beta players on or around the minimum recommended specs, with a number of users even playing below the minimum spec.

While you wait for Borderlands 4 to launch, be sure to check out IGN’s recent interview with narrative director Sam Winkler, lead writer Taylor Clark, and managing director of narrative properties Lin Joyce to learn more about why the team decided to create a more grounded story this time around.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

MachineGames seemingly hasn’t finished with its Wolfenstein series just yet.

While it’s been over half a decade since we last punched a Nazi in Wolfenstein: Youngblood, studio head Jerk Gustafsson has hinted the team would very much like to go back to the Wolfenstein universe to tie up BJ Blazkowicz’s story.

While both Youngblood and the 2019 VR title Cyberpilot touched on the wider Blazkowicz family’s fortunes, we haven’t actually played as series stalwart Blazkowicz since 2017’s The New Colossus. And it’s BJ’s story that seems to intrigue Gustafsson most — in fact, it seems Blazkowicz’s story was always meant to be told in three parts.

In a new interview with Noclip, Gustafsson said the team had “always seen [BJ’s story] as a trilogy,” adding: “That journey for BJ, even during those first weeks at [id Software], when we mapped out New Order — we still had the plan for at least [BJ], what would happen in the second one and what would happen in the third one.

“I think that’s important to say, because⁠ — at least, I hope ⁠— we’re not done with Wolfenstein yet. We have a story to tell,” he added (thanks, PC Gamer).

The last Wolfenstein game was 2019’s Wolftenstein: Youngblood, Set in 1980, 19 years after BJ Blazkowicz ignited the second American Revolution, it introduced the next Blazkowicz generation to the fight against the Nazis. In IGN’s review, we awarded it a middling 6.5, calling it “aggressively okay.”

MachineGames’ latest offering, however, was Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which secured 9/10.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Despite a healthy ‘Mostly Positive’ review score on Steam and a concurrent user count high enough to make a AAA game blush with envy, Hollow Knight: Silksong’s Chinese players are seemingly less impressed by the highly-anticipated sequel.

While the Steam user review rating from players experiencing the game in English, French, German, and Polish are ‘Very Positive,’ and Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian reviews are ‘Overwhelmingly Positive,’ players using simplified Chinese have brought the score down to ‘Mostly Negative’ for that language, chiefly because of issues with the translation.

After tens of thousands of Chinese players left negative reviews, dragging Silksong’s overall Steam user review rating down to 76% positive, Team Cherry’s Matthew Griffin acknowledged the problem on X/Twitter, writing: “To our Chinese speaking fans: We appreciate you letting us know about quality issues with the current Simplified Chinese translation of Hollow Knight: Silksong. We’ll be working to improve the translation over the coming weeks. Thanks for your feedback and support.”

So, what’s the issue? “The current Silksong [Chinese] translation reads like a Wuxia novel instead of conveying the game’s tone,” said one player. “This isn’t about effort, but about taste and direction, and speaking from experience likely can’t be fixed without replacing the translator.” Another said: “can you imagine as a Chinese, I need to play the game by switching in English to understand [the] translation.”

“Native Chinese speaker here. The translation uses awkwardly archaic wording that makes a lot of the content unintelligible,” added someone else. “I’m talking about word salad type of situation. On top of the anachronistic pretentiousness, it’s downright gibberish at times.”

Neither Griffin nor Team Cherry has yet confirmed when a patch is coming, but at least we know the developer is aware of the issue and is looking to fix it “over the coming weeks.”

We’re having a great time with what we’ve played so far, however. In IGN’s Hollow Knight: Silksong review-in-progress, we wrote: “I could keep digging into more early observations, but honestly I just can’t wait to stop typing this so I can dive back in […] But so far Silksong is exactly what I want from a sequel like this: it’s not completely reinventing the wheel or messing with all the things that made the first game so incredible, but it’s also not resting on its laurels. No part of it feels untouched, and as far as I can tell right now, it somehow feels even better for it.”

But amid the excitement over Team Cherry’s long awaited sequel is a debate within the community about whether the game is too hard — perhaps even unfairly so. Now, Silksong players are trying to help out those who have quit the game because they’re finding it too difficult by pointing to mods that make it much easier.

Thankfully, IGN is here to help. Here’s how to unlock and use the map, how to get Rosary Beads, Achievements and Trophies list, and our ever expanding Silksong Interactive Map. Also, you may need the Bell Beast boss fight guide. It’s a hard one!

Be sure to stay up-to-date with all the latest from IGN by clicking here and setting IGN as a preferred source in Google.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Nintendo doesn’t really need to create new franchises, a former developer has said, explaining that the company can simply wrap its fresh gameplay ideas into one of the many beloved video game series it owns already.

Speaking to Bloomberg, programmer Ken Watanabe said Nintendo doesn’t “really fuss over” which of its big franchises a fun new gameplay mechanic might end up in. And, with so many existing series to chose from, there’s little need to come up with more.

“New franchises haven’t come out simply because there’s no real need to make them,” Watanabe said. “When Nintendo wants to do something new, it’s basically about the gameplay mechanics first — about creating a new way to play.”

At Nintendo, Watanabe worked on Super Mario Bros. Wii, Pikmin 3 and Splatoon — one of the company’s biggest new franchises of its modern era. But even the first Splatoon is now a decade old.

“As for the skin or the wrapper, they don’t really fuss over it,” Watanabe continued. “They just pick whatever fits that new gameplay best.”

Nintendo’s long list of existing IP certainly seems expansive and beloved enough to support this. Why make a new spaceship combat series when it’s been years since the last Star Fox? Why create a fresh arcade racer when you could make a new F-Zero? (Though, let’s be real, Nintendo is never making a new, fully fledged F-Zero.)

Nintendo already has most genres covered, and existing fans waiting with baited breath for the next entries in series such as Animal Crossing, Pikmin and Fire Emblem. It makes sense that, if Nintendo did have new gameplay ideas for existing genres, it could just co-opt one of its existing series too.

Take the upcoming Splatoon Raiders, for example, which Nintendo has described as “the first Splatoon series spin-off.” It looks set to focus on a specific hero character and potentially feature more adventure-led gameplay than its quick-fire shooting predecessors. Could this have been a new IP instead? Maybe, but spinning it off from the hugely popular Splatoon means it instantly appeals to an existing fanbase and has better brand recognition.

Nintendo hasn’t completely ditched the idea of new franchises, of course — though it’s fair to say that the company tests fewer new IPs now than it once did. Nintendo’s most recent new idea was the just-released Drag x Drive, its wheelchair basketball game that utilised the Switch 2’s motion controls. It’s hard to see how that could have fitted into an existing franchise — though maybe plonking Mario and friends into its arenas might have helped.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

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